Discussion and analysis of international university rankings and topics related to the quality of higher education. Anyone wishing to contact Richard Holmes without worrying about ending up in comments can go to rjholmes2000@yahoo.com
Thursday, May 31, 2018
Where did the top data scientists study?
The website efinancialcareers has a list of the top twenty data scientists in finance and banking. This looks like a subjective list and another writer might come up with a different set of experts. Even so it is quite interesting.
Their degrees are mainly in things like engineering, computer science and maths. There is only one each in business, economics and finance.
The institutions where they studied are:
Stanford (three)
University College London (three)
Institut Polytechnique de Grenoble
Oxford
Leonard Stern School of Business, New York University
University of Mexico
Universite Paris Dauphine
Ecole Polytechnique
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)
California State University
Indian Institute of Science
Johns Hopkins University
Institute of Management Development and Research, India
University of Illinois
University of Pittsburgh
Indian Institute of Technology.
Harvard, MIT and Cambridge are absent but there are three Indian Institutes, three French schools and some non-Ivy US places like RPI and the Universities of Pittsburgh and Illinois.
Wednesday, May 30, 2018
Why are US universities doing so well in the THE reputation rankings?
For the last couple of years the higher education media has tried to present any blip in the fortunes of UK universities as one of the malign effects of Brexit, whose toxic rays are unlimited by space, time or logic. Similarly, if anything unpleasant happens to US institutions, it is often linked to the evil spell of the great orange devil, who is scaring away international students, preventing the recruitment of the scientific elites of the world, or even being insufficiently credulous of the latest settled science.
So what is the explanation for the remarkable renaissance of US higher education apparently revealed by the THE reputation survey published today?
Is Trump working his magic to make American colleges great again?
UCLA is up four places, Carnegie Mellon seven, Cornell six, University of Washington six, Pennsylvania three. In contrast, several European and Asian institutions have fallen, University College London and the University of Kyoto by two places, Munich by seven, and Moscow State University by three.
In the previous post I noted that this year's survey had seen an increased response from engineering and computer science and a reduced one from the social sciences and the arts and humanities. As expected, LSE has tumbled five places and Oxford has fallen one place. Surprisingly, Caltech has fallen as well.
Some schools that are strong in engineering, such as Nanyang Technological University and Georgia Institute of Technology, have done well but I do not know if that is a full explanation for the success of US universities.
I suspect that US administrators have learned that influencing reputation is easier than maintaining scientific and intellectual standards and that a gap is emerging between perceptions and actual achievements.
It will be interesting to see if these results are confirmed by the reputation indicators included in the QS, Best Global Universities, and the Round University Rankings
So what is the explanation for the remarkable renaissance of US higher education apparently revealed by the THE reputation survey published today?
Is Trump working his magic to make American colleges great again?
UCLA is up four places, Carnegie Mellon seven, Cornell six, University of Washington six, Pennsylvania three. In contrast, several European and Asian institutions have fallen, University College London and the University of Kyoto by two places, Munich by seven, and Moscow State University by three.
In the previous post I noted that this year's survey had seen an increased response from engineering and computer science and a reduced one from the social sciences and the arts and humanities. As expected, LSE has tumbled five places and Oxford has fallen one place. Surprisingly, Caltech has fallen as well.
Some schools that are strong in engineering, such as Nanyang Technological University and Georgia Institute of Technology, have done well but I do not know if that is a full explanation for the success of US universities.
I suspect that US administrators have learned that influencing reputation is easier than maintaining scientific and intellectual standards and that a gap is emerging between perceptions and actual achievements.
It will be interesting to see if these results are confirmed by the reputation indicators included in the QS, Best Global Universities, and the Round University Rankings
Saturday, May 26, 2018
The THE reputation rankings
THE have just published details of their reputation rankings which will be published on May 30th, just ahead, no doubt coincidentally, of the QS World University Rankings.
The number of responses has gone down a bit, from 10,566 last year to 10,162, possibly reflecting growing survey fatigue among academics.
In surveys of this kind the distribution of responses is crucial. The more responses from engineers the better for universities in Asia. The more from scholars in the humanities the better for Western Europe. I have noted in a previous blog that the fortunes of Oxford in this ranking are tied to the percentage of responses from the arts and humanities.
This year there have been modest or small reductions in the percentage of responses from the clinical and health sciences, the life sciences, the social sciences, education and psychology and large ones for business and economics and the arts and humanities.
The number of responses in engineering and computer science has increased considerably.
It is likely that this year places like Caltech and Nanyang Technological University will do better while Oxford and LSE will suffer. It will be interesting to see if THE claim that this is all the fault of Brexit, an anti-feminist reaction to Oxford's appointment of a female vice-chancellor or government Scrooges turning off the funding tap.
The number of responses has gone down a bit, from 10,566 last year to 10,162, possibly reflecting growing survey fatigue among academics.
In surveys of this kind the distribution of responses is crucial. The more responses from engineers the better for universities in Asia. The more from scholars in the humanities the better for Western Europe. I have noted in a previous blog that the fortunes of Oxford in this ranking are tied to the percentage of responses from the arts and humanities.
This year there have been modest or small reductions in the percentage of responses from the clinical and health sciences, the life sciences, the social sciences, education and psychology and large ones for business and economics and the arts and humanities.
The number of responses in engineering and computer science has increased considerably.
It is likely that this year places like Caltech and Nanyang Technological University will do better while Oxford and LSE will suffer. It will be interesting to see if THE claim that this is all the fault of Brexit, an anti-feminist reaction to Oxford's appointment of a female vice-chancellor or government Scrooges turning off the funding tap.
|
|
2017 %
|
2018 %
|
|
Physical science
|
14.6
|
15.6
|
|
Clinical and health
|
14.5
|
13.2
|
|
Life sciences
|
13.3
|
12.8
|
|
Business and economics
|
13.1
|
9
|
|
engineering
|
12.7
|
18.1
|
|
Arts and humanities
|
12.5
|
7.5
|
|
Social sciences
|
8.9
|
7.6
|
|
Computer science
|
4.2
|
10.4
|
|
Education
|
2.6
|
2.5
|
|
Psychology
|
2.6
|
2.3
|
|
Law
|
0.9
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
|
|
North America
|
22
|
22
|
|
Asia Pacific
|
33
|
32
|
|
Western Europe
|
25
|
26
|
|
Eastern Europe
|
11
|
11
|
|
Latin America
|
5
|
5
|
|
Middle East
|
3
|
3
|
|
Africa
|
2
|
2
|
Friday, May 18, 2018
Getting ready for the next World's Smartest Rankings
As the world waits for the coming round of global rankings -- will Harvard still be number one in the Shanghai rankings? -- I am starting to update my list of smart rankings.
One of favorites was 'the Campus Squirrel Listings." A candidate for inclusion in the next edition is 'The Top 10 Colleges for Dog Lovers'
Number one in the USA is Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.
One of favorites was 'the Campus Squirrel Listings." A candidate for inclusion in the next edition is 'The Top 10 Colleges for Dog Lovers'
Number one in the USA is Stephens College in Columbia, Missouri.
Monday, May 14, 2018
Alberta ousts Savitribai Phule Pune in latest edition of innovative ranking
The Fortunate 500 rankings use a sophisticated and innovative methodology to rank global universities. The 2018 edition puts the University of Alberta in first place in the world displacing Savitribai Phule Pune University which has mysteriously dropped out of the top 500.
The top British university is the University of Reading and number one in the USA is Caldwell University.
None of these universities have made any official comment.
These rankings have received almost no interest in the international media. Perhaps the rankers should start announcing the results at a prestigious summit in a spectacular setting along with networking brunches and masterclasses. I have selected a venue for them using an equally sophisticated methodology, North Korea. Perhaps the summit could be combined with with the groundbreaking ceremony for the Pyongyang Trump Tower.
The top British university is the University of Reading and number one in the USA is Caldwell University.
None of these universities have made any official comment.
These rankings have received almost no interest in the international media. Perhaps the rankers should start announcing the results at a prestigious summit in a spectacular setting along with networking brunches and masterclasses. I have selected a venue for them using an equally sophisticated methodology, North Korea. Perhaps the summit could be combined with with the groundbreaking ceremony for the Pyongyang Trump Tower.
Friday, May 11, 2018
Ranking Insights from Russia
The ranking industry is expanding and new rankings appear all the time. Most global rankings measure research publications and citations. Others try to add to the mix indicators that might have something to do with teaching and learning. There is now a ranking that tries to capture various third missions.
The Round University Rankings published in Russia are in the tradition of holistic rankings. They give a 40 % weighting to research, 40 % to teaching, 10% to international diversity and 10% to financial sustainability. Each group contains five equally weighted indicators. The data is derived from Clarivate Analytics who also contribute to the US News Best Global Universities Rankings.
These rankings are similar to the THE rankings in that they attempt to assess quality rather than quantity but they have 20 indicators instead of 13 and assign sensible weightings. Unfortunately, they receive only a fraction of the attention given to the THE rankings.
They are, however, very valuable since they dig deeper into the data than other global rankings. They also show that there is a downside to measures of quality and that data submitted directly by institutions should be treated with caution and perhaps scepticism.
Here are the top universities for each of the RUR indicators.
Teaching
Academic staff per students: VIB (Flemish Institute of Biotechnology), Belgium
Academic staff per bachelor degrees awarded: University of Valladolid, Spain
Doctoral degrees per academic staff: Kurdistan University of Medical Science, Iran
Doctoral degrees per bachelor degrees awarded: Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
World teaching reputation Harvard University, USA.
Research
Citations per academic and research staff: Harvard
Doctoral degrees per admitted PhD: Al Farabi Kazakh National University
Normalised citation impact: Rockefeller University, USA
Share of international co-authored papers: Free University of Berlin
World research reputation: Harvard.
International diversity
Share of international academic staff: American University of Sharjah, UAE
Share of international students: American University of Sharjah
Share of international co-authored papers: Innopolis University, Russia
Reputation outside region: Voronezh State Technical University, Russai
International Level: EPF Lausanne, Switzerland.
Financial sustainability:
Institutional income per academic staff: Universidade Federal Do Ceara, Brazil
Institutional income per student: Rockefeller University
Papers per research income: Novosibersk State University of Economics and Management, Russia
Research income per academic and research staff: Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Research income per institutional income: A C Camargo Cancer Center, Brazil.
There are some surprising results here. The most obvious is Voronezh State Technical University which is first for reputation outside its region (Asia, Europe and so on), even though its overall scores for reputation and for international diversity are very low. The other top universities for this metric are just what you would expect, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford and so on. I wonder whether there is some sort of bug in the survey procedure, perhaps something like the university's supporters being assigned to Asia and therefore out of region. The university is also in second place in the world for papers per research income despite very low scores for the other research indicators.
There are other oddities such as Novosibersk State University of Economics and Management placed first for papers per research income and Universidade Federal Do Ceara for institutional income per academic staff. These may result from anomalies in the procedures for reporting and analysing data, possibly including problems in collecting data on income and staff.
It also seems that medical schools and specialist or predominantly postgraduate institutions such as Rockefeller University, the Kurdistan University of Medical Science, Jawarhalal Nehru University and VIB have a big advantage with these indicators since they tend to have favourable faculty student ratios, sometimes boosted by large numbers of clinical and research only staff, and a large proportion of doctoral students.
Jawaharlal Nehru University is a mainly postgraduate university so a high placing for academic staff per bachelor degrees awarded is not unexpected although I am surprised that it is ahead of Yale and Princeton. I must admit that the third place here for the University of Baghdad needs some explanation.
The indicator doctoral degrees per admitted PhD might identify universities that do a good job of selection and training and get large numbers of doctoral candidates through the system. Or perhaps it identifies universities where doctoral programmes are so lacking in rigour that nearly everybody can get their degree once admitted. The top ten of this indicator includes De Montfort University, Shakarim University, Kingston University, and the University of Westminster, none of which are famous for research excellence across the range of disciplines.
Measures of international diversity have become a staple of global rankings since they are fairly easy to collect. The problem is that international orientation may have something do with quality but it may also simply be a necessary attribute of being in a small country next to larger countries with the same or similar language and culture. The top ten for the international student indicators includes the Central European University and the American university of Sharjah. For international faculty it includes the University of Macau and Qatar University.
To conclude, these indicators suggest that self submitted institutional data should be used sparingly and that data from third party sources may be preferable. Also, while ranking by quality instead of quantity is sometimes advisable it also means that anomalies and outliers are more likely to appear.
The Round University Rankings published in Russia are in the tradition of holistic rankings. They give a 40 % weighting to research, 40 % to teaching, 10% to international diversity and 10% to financial sustainability. Each group contains five equally weighted indicators. The data is derived from Clarivate Analytics who also contribute to the US News Best Global Universities Rankings.
These rankings are similar to the THE rankings in that they attempt to assess quality rather than quantity but they have 20 indicators instead of 13 and assign sensible weightings. Unfortunately, they receive only a fraction of the attention given to the THE rankings.
They are, however, very valuable since they dig deeper into the data than other global rankings. They also show that there is a downside to measures of quality and that data submitted directly by institutions should be treated with caution and perhaps scepticism.
Here are the top universities for each of the RUR indicators.
Teaching
Academic staff per students: VIB (Flemish Institute of Biotechnology), Belgium
Academic staff per bachelor degrees awarded: University of Valladolid, Spain
Doctoral degrees per academic staff: Kurdistan University of Medical Science, Iran
Doctoral degrees per bachelor degrees awarded: Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
World teaching reputation Harvard University, USA.
Research
Citations per academic and research staff: Harvard
Doctoral degrees per admitted PhD: Al Farabi Kazakh National University
Normalised citation impact: Rockefeller University, USA
Share of international co-authored papers: Free University of Berlin
World research reputation: Harvard.
International diversity
Share of international academic staff: American University of Sharjah, UAE
Share of international students: American University of Sharjah
Share of international co-authored papers: Innopolis University, Russia
Reputation outside region: Voronezh State Technical University, Russai
International Level: EPF Lausanne, Switzerland.
Financial sustainability:
Institutional income per academic staff: Universidade Federal Do Ceara, Brazil
Institutional income per student: Rockefeller University
Papers per research income: Novosibersk State University of Economics and Management, Russia
Research income per academic and research staff: Istanbul Technical University, Turkey
Research income per institutional income: A C Camargo Cancer Center, Brazil.
There are some surprising results here. The most obvious is Voronezh State Technical University which is first for reputation outside its region (Asia, Europe and so on), even though its overall scores for reputation and for international diversity are very low. The other top universities for this metric are just what you would expect, Harvard, MIT, Stanford, Oxford and so on. I wonder whether there is some sort of bug in the survey procedure, perhaps something like the university's supporters being assigned to Asia and therefore out of region. The university is also in second place in the world for papers per research income despite very low scores for the other research indicators.
There are other oddities such as Novosibersk State University of Economics and Management placed first for papers per research income and Universidade Federal Do Ceara for institutional income per academic staff. These may result from anomalies in the procedures for reporting and analysing data, possibly including problems in collecting data on income and staff.
It also seems that medical schools and specialist or predominantly postgraduate institutions such as Rockefeller University, the Kurdistan University of Medical Science, Jawarhalal Nehru University and VIB have a big advantage with these indicators since they tend to have favourable faculty student ratios, sometimes boosted by large numbers of clinical and research only staff, and a large proportion of doctoral students.
Jawaharlal Nehru University is a mainly postgraduate university so a high placing for academic staff per bachelor degrees awarded is not unexpected although I am surprised that it is ahead of Yale and Princeton. I must admit that the third place here for the University of Baghdad needs some explanation.
The indicator doctoral degrees per admitted PhD might identify universities that do a good job of selection and training and get large numbers of doctoral candidates through the system. Or perhaps it identifies universities where doctoral programmes are so lacking in rigour that nearly everybody can get their degree once admitted. The top ten of this indicator includes De Montfort University, Shakarim University, Kingston University, and the University of Westminster, none of which are famous for research excellence across the range of disciplines.
Measures of international diversity have become a staple of global rankings since they are fairly easy to collect. The problem is that international orientation may have something do with quality but it may also simply be a necessary attribute of being in a small country next to larger countries with the same or similar language and culture. The top ten for the international student indicators includes the Central European University and the American university of Sharjah. For international faculty it includes the University of Macau and Qatar University.
To conclude, these indicators suggest that self submitted institutional data should be used sparingly and that data from third party sources may be preferable. Also, while ranking by quality instead of quantity is sometimes advisable it also means that anomalies and outliers are more likely to appear.
Tuesday, May 01, 2018
World Top 20 Project
The International Rankings Expert Group (IREG) has produced an inventory of international rankings that is testimony to the enormous interest in comparing and classifying universities around the world.
In addition to those rankings that were included there are several "also rans", rankings that were not counted because they included only one indicator, had been published only once or provided insufficient information about methodology .
One of these is the World Top 20 Project whose Executive Director and founder is Albert N Mitchell II. The website claims to rank 500 universities according to seven criteria and to use data from institutional databases and educational publications to construct eight regional rankings. The scores are then compared with those from the US News Best Global Universities, the THE World University Rankings, the QS World University Rankings, and the Center for World University Rankings to select the global top twenty.
The top five universities in each region are listed. Most seem quite sensible -- Cape Town is first in Africa, Tokyo in Europe, Harvard in North America and Cambridge in Europe -- but there are no Mexican universities in the top five in central America.
It is interesting that this site has included CWUR rather than the Shanghai ARWU in the big four world rankings. Could this be the start of a new trend?
There is no information about ranks or scores for the various indicators or details about the sources of data. It is also difficult to see how information about things like career development facilities, disability access and low-income outreach could be collected from the universities mentioned.
Unless further information about sources and methods appears, it seems that there is no need to discuss these rankings any further
In addition to those rankings that were included there are several "also rans", rankings that were not counted because they included only one indicator, had been published only once or provided insufficient information about methodology .
One of these is the World Top 20 Project whose Executive Director and founder is Albert N Mitchell II. The website claims to rank 500 universities according to seven criteria and to use data from institutional databases and educational publications to construct eight regional rankings. The scores are then compared with those from the US News Best Global Universities, the THE World University Rankings, the QS World University Rankings, and the Center for World University Rankings to select the global top twenty.
The top five universities in each region are listed. Most seem quite sensible -- Cape Town is first in Africa, Tokyo in Europe, Harvard in North America and Cambridge in Europe -- but there are no Mexican universities in the top five in central America.
It is interesting that this site has included CWUR rather than the Shanghai ARWU in the big four world rankings. Could this be the start of a new trend?
There is no information about ranks or scores for the various indicators or details about the sources of data. It is also difficult to see how information about things like career development facilities, disability access and low-income outreach could be collected from the universities mentioned.
Unless further information about sources and methods appears, it seems that there is no need to discuss these rankings any further